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When a mentally ill family member committed a non-violent crime we were lucky to be living in California. There, the court considered the underlying mental illness first and provided an integrated rehabilitation program through its STAR Court (Support and Treatment After Release). Had STAR Court not been available, our family member would likely have faced prosecution and prison.

Instead, after a year-and-a-half of collaborative support by the judicial, medical, and social support communities—whose conditions required strict adherence by the offender—charges were dropped. Eventually the criminal record was expunged. STAR Court also provided employment assistance that led to long-term employment and self-sufficiency.

There is no option like STAR Court in St. Croix County for mentally ill offenders.

The underlying cause, mental illness, is secondary to prosecution for the crime itself. Our jails and prisons are full of mentally ill offenders who are in desperate need of a program like STAR Court.

St. Croix County addresses the special needs of the addicted through its Drug Court. Can we not help the mentally ill offender in the same way with a program modeled after STAR Court?

Ellen Durand Olson

Woodville

A rebuttal of Dr. Brux tax cut column

TO THE EDITOR

Adequately refuting all misrepresentations of economics laid down by Dr. Brux without half a page is difficult. If this paper wants to have any credibility whatsoever, it needs to balance her one-sided, socialist propaganda with historical economic facts.

If the retired professor believes the nonsense she professes, maybe she should move to a Socialist success story like Venezuela or a Communist country of vast prosperity like the former Soviet Union or DPRK.

I could refute every point made here, but some of the most egregious examples: First, this is not a communist country and until the economic destruction wrought by Obama it was not a socialist country either. We are in the process of returning to a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. So, most economic claims about redistribution belong in North Korea or Venezuela and have nothing to do with our capitalist prosperity that allowed for your and my prosperity in life. Why deny our children's future?

Did you know charity, which satisfies the soul as well as the mind and body, is highest in this country where capital flows freely and the prosperity it creates fuels charitable giving like nowhere else without Government filtering or interference?

Your so-called "longest economic expansion" is factually the worst, most anemic economic recovery since WWII. If you want to understand economic history repeating itself in tax cuts, just read JFK and the Reagan Revolution, by Kudlow & Domitrovic, non-partisan, historical facts, and not debatable.

You state we do not need additional expansion. Really? With a $20 trillion debt, are you suggesting we can cut our way out of this mess Obama created? Major economic growth is likely the only way we can service and reduce our debt.

Taxing the wealthy more progressively when they already pay 95 percent of the taxes has never worked in the U.S. or any country. You can't cut taxes for people who do not pay them.

This kind of poorly thought, uninformed opinion being published to an intelligent community is out of place and insulting. Who sponsors this at The Star Observer and RiverTown News anyway?